FlyGesture 1.0.2

At a Glance

FlyGesture 1.0.2

Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2010 series. Every day from mid July until the end of August, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a favorite free or low-cost program. Visit the Mac Gems homepage for a list of past Mac Gems.

If time is money then Flying Meat’s free FlyGesture is a cash cow. FlyGesture lets you use your mouse or trackpad to make small gestures that perform a multitude of tasks without you ever having to move your fingers from your MacBook keyboard or your mouse.

Typing FlyGesture’s default hot-keys (ctrl-space) puts a small 5-by-5 grid containing 25 small circles right beneath your mouse pointer. Moving your mouse in a specific pattern over these circles and clicking on the last circle kicks off a script that performs a specific task.

FlyGesture lets you open a single application or perform multi-step tasks with a keyboard shortcut and a quick flick of your mouse.

FlyGesture ships with about 35 pre-configured gestures for things like opening Websites and applications, paging up or down in your current application or playing and pausing the currently playing song in iTunes. New gestures are simple to create and aren’t limited to a single task, so it’s conceivable to kick off an entire process with the flick of the mouse.

While FlyGesture is easy to use, mastering more than a handful of gestures can prove daunting, especially since it’s possible to create complex gestures. But as a utility for launching applications or performing repetitive tasks on the “fly,” FlyGesture is a sure bet.

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[Jeffery Battersby is an IT Consultant, Apple Trainer, (very) smalltime actor, and regular contributor to Macworld. He writes about Macs and more at his blog.]